Mass Collection of Random Junk
by Daricio
Summary: Weird Crossovers and Random Ideas galore. This is just an idea-dump spot for me, with a bunch of one-shots and half-finished scenes from things I never did anything with. Have fun reading !
1. ShiniKami

Okay. So, I have a huge ton of really random fanfiction one-shots and things I've started over the years. Since there are a lot of them, I don't really want to create individual stories for each of them, for fear of spamming my account with pointlessness. Especially since none of them are completed—in fact several of them even cut off abruptly mid-scene. But I don't want to go back and complete them, since I have lots of other projects to work on, including school work.

But I had a free day today, so I decided to spend my time organizing them, so that I could shove them into this Mass Collection of Random Junk. Because otherwise, they would only ever sit on my computer collecting dust.

Some of these are Bleach. Some of them aren't. I stuck it under the Bleach category since most of them have at least some Bleach in them.

If you want to continue any of these, go right ahead. Seriously, don't even ask me. As long as you don't copy/paste my actual text, I'm fine with it.

Keep in mind that a lot of these were written back when I was still writing Yu-Gi-Oh stuff, and all of them were written quite a long time ago. Because of this, the writing style in them definitely isn't my best... And neither are the ideas... (wince) Don't judge...

I'll start off each "chapter" with a brief explanation of the story I was writing at the time.

* * *

This particular story was the result of my wanting to write a crossover with Death Note, mostly because of the similarities between terminology used...

The name ShiniKami comes due to the fact that "Death Note" is a play off of "Shinigami". Kami can mean "God", but written a different way, it can also mean "Hair", or "Paper", depending. When you combine Kami with other things, as in Shinigami, or Origami, the k changes to a g. Therefore, Shinigami means "Death God", but it can also mean "Death Paper". Hence Death Note. The whole thing's a pun.

(On a random note, that also means that Shinigami could mean "Death Hair", and Origami could mean "Folding God", or "Folding Hair"......)

Ignore Light; he is drastically out of character.

* * *

**-ShiniKami-**

Kurosaki Ichigo was sitting at a table outside of a café, where he'd been for the past hour or so, boredly sipping lemonade from a glass and watching the empty street around him without really expecting to see much.

The street wasn't terribly busy. Occasionally, somebody would walk by on their way to work or school or wherever, but for the most part it was deserted. Ichigo himself should have been in school, but instead he was stuck here, miles from home on watch duty, his shinigami representative badge sitting out on the table in front of him.

He was hoping that it would go off, but this was unlikely. He had been in the city for a few days now, along with Rukia and several other shinigami, and even though this area was supposed to be having increased activity—supposedly, tons of strong hollows—which was his whole reason for being here, his badge hadn't started screaming 'hollow' at him the entire time.

Ichigo sighed. When Rukia had first told him of this new assignment from Soul Society, he hadn't been much happier than he was right now. He wasn't part of the Gotei 13; they shouldn't be able to order him around, especially not after all he'd already done for them. Ungrateful...

Of course, he had to agree to the assignment, if grudgingly. He couldn't refuse; not with this many lives in danger...

So, it had happened. Several low level shinigami had been stationed in Karakura town to take care of the regular tasks, and Ichigo was sent with the other fighters to deal with the more powerful hollows that would be here.

Unfortunately, the promise of a good fight out of all of this hassle was starting to look like some elaborate hoax after all. He was wasting his time here...

In complete boredom, Ichigo began going over the various points of the mission again.

The past few months, the biggest news story in Japan had been the serial killer, Kira, who apparently felt it was his duty to kill criminals, even those who were in jail but not actually sentenced to die. The strangest thing about the murders was that there was absolutely no evidence. The criminals died of heart attacks, without anyone anywhere near them...

There had been a particularly big uproar when a special detective calling himself L had appeared on television and challenged Kira directly. Since then, the killings had been concentrated in the Kanto region of Japan, where L had stated Kira was hiding.

Ichigo had found the news reports interesting, of course, but had ultimately dismissed it as unimportant to his life. Catching serial killers was the job of the police, not a teenager. Not even his side job of shinigami representative was going to get him dragged into this.

Or so he had thought, until Rukia had shown up with a report from Soul Society.

Normally, the shinigami don't get involved in cases in the real world. If there's a mass murderer going around, they just post more low-class shinigami in the area to take care of the extra soul burials that needed to take place because of it. However, this case was apparently different.

According to Rukia and her horrible bunny drawings, the criminals who were being killed would create big problems. A human who has done great evil while they were alive can't be given a soul burial. They skip the 'plus' stage and go straight to being hollows because they'd already lost their hearts.

And Ichigo knew from first-hand experience that hollows like these tended to be very strong hollows, ones that lower level shinigami would have serious trouble with.

So the problem was, by killing people whose souls would immediately become powerful hollows, this Kira killer was unknowingly creating hundreds of hollows and setting them upon the innocent people of Japan...

Or supposedly. None of the other shinigami who had been assigned to the area on emergency call had seen anything unusual either. There weren't even very many normal plus spirits in the area, much less the far more dangerous hollows. Something was very wrong here.

Whatever that something was, it was making Ichigo annoyed, bored, and probably failing all of his classes for no reason.

Speaking of annoyance, Ichigo had just run out of lemonade again. He glared down at the empty glass, and then sighed and checked his watch.

It was getting close to the time when the shinigami in the area were to meet to report, but not close enough that he actually needed to start heading that direction. Idly, Ichigo wondered if he had enough time for another drink or if he should take a quick walk around the area he'd been assigned to one last time.

After a moment, Ichigo decided that he didn't want any more lemonade, but he didn't want to get up and patrol either. He rested his chin on his arms and continued watching the street boredly.

Almost immediately, he spotted something that made him look up again, his eyes wide.

There, across the street, a teenager probably only a little older than he was himself was walking along the sidewalk. Behind him, a tall, skinny hollow was hovering just over his shoulder, thin black wings of some sort outstretched to keep it aloft.

Ichigo shot up out of his chair, grabbing his shinigami representative badge off the table. The badge hadn't gone off! How was there a hollow here if the badge hadn't gone off?

It had obviously been here for a long time, probably stalking this boy, Ichigo realized. The badge only picked up the entrance of a hollow, not its continued existence.

Whatever. First things first, he had to get that boy out of here so that he wouldn't get hurt. Dashing across the street, he grabbed his shoulder. "Excuse me. You're in danger. Please get out of here, quickly!"

The boy stared at him in wonder, jerking away from his hand. "Danger? What kind of danger?"

Ichigo glanced at the hollow in worry, gripping his badge tighter. "No time to explain. Just go!"

"This is interesting, Light... I think this human can see me," the hollow said suddenly, a wide grin spreading on its face.

Ichigo tensed, quickly pushing the teen out of the way a little so that he was standing between him and the hollow. "Go!" he repeated.

"H-hang on," the teen frowned at him. "I don't think you-"

The hollow began to move forward, trying to edge around Ichigo to get back to the teenager. Ichigo scowled.

"I don't have time for this," he muttered. He slammed the shinigami representative badge against his chest, activating it and changing to his shinigami form. His body fell behind him and the teenager caught it in surprise.

"What the... Hey, are you all right?"

Ichigo ignored him, reaching up and gripping Zangetsu's hilt. Unsheathing the sword, he held it up, ready to attack. The hollow stumbled backward several paces, looking shocked.

"Hey, hey, no need for violence," it stammered, raising its hands in a show of peace. "What's with the giant sword? What are you?"

"What sword? Ryuuk, what's going on?" the teenager asked in confusion.

Ichigo glanced back at him, surprised that he seemed to be talking to the hollow. So he could see after all... "Hurry up and get out of here!"

The teen gave no sign that he'd heard Ichigo, keeping his gaze locked on the hollow, who looked just as confused as the teen did.

"I don't know what's going on," the hollow whined in answer to the teen's question. "He just suddenly appeared with-"

Ichigo had had enough of this. He swung Zangetsu at the hollow and it quickly ducked out of the way, backing up again. "Why have you been following this boy around?" he demanded threateningly.

The hollow looked like it was contemplating an answer, but finally asked its own question instead. "What are you?" it asked again. "I've never seen anything like you..."

Ichigo raised an eyebrow at it. "A hollow that doesn't know what a shinigami is?"

The hollow's brow furrowed in concentration. "You mean to say that _you_ are a shinigami? But, that's impossible! And what did you call me?"

"A hollow," Ichigo repeated. "You must be a new one, if you don't already know all this. Why are you stalking this boy?"

"I'm not stalking him," the hollow said defensively. "It's not called stalking if he knows I'm here. And what do you mean, new? I've been a shinigami for hundreds of years, I'll have you know."

Ichigo's mouth fell open slightly. "Wait. Hang on, you honestly think-"

"Ryuuk, what's going on?" the teenager asked again, looking exasperated. "This boy just ran over here and spontaneously died on the spot, and now you're talking to thin air!"

Ichigo stared at him, then back at the hollow. "He can see you, but he can't see me?" he asked in disbelief. "And why are you calling yourself a shinigami?"

"Why are _you_ calling _your_self a shinigami?" the hollow demanded. "You're just a human! A human with a giant sword, sure, but a human!"

Ichigo scowled. "Technically, I'm a shinigami representative," he clarified.

"A representative?" the hollow repeated. "I didn't know you could _do_ that."

"Ryuuk," the teenager said in annoyance. "At least tell me what I'm supposed to do with him!" he gestured at Ichigo's body, lying on the sidewalk.

The hollow frowned at it for a moment, then looked up at Ichigo. "I don't know. What do _you_ want Light to do with that?"

Ichigo hesitated for a moment, and then made a quick decision, sheathing Zangetsu and replacing it on his back. "I'm not quite sure what's going on here. I have other questions for you, and probably for him too. Will you accept a truce until those questions are answered?"

The hollow thought about this, and then nodded. "Okay. I wasn't the one attacking anyone, anyway, so a non-violence truce works for me."

Ichigo didn't quite trust the hollow, but he needed his questions answered. Walking over to the teen, he knelt down and got back into his body.

The teenager stared, his mouth hanging open, as Ichigo opened his eyes and quickly got to his feet.

"What...? But, you were just..."

"Dead," Ichigo confirmed. "I know. Come on. We need to talk, so we should go somewhere a little more private..."

"Wait, shouldn't we get some introductions, first?" the teen reasoned. "I'm Yagami Light. And this is Ryuuk."

Ichigo frowned. "Kurosaki Ichigo, shinigami representative. Come on. I've been staying in a hotel near here." He began to walk, keeping an eye on Ryuuk in case he tried anything.

Light nodded, following Ichigo down the street.

* * *

I was fully planning on continuing this. The only reason I wrote this part was to write the next scene, where all of the explanations occur...

Basically, the idea I had was that a really long time ago, a hollow ended up with the hollow ability of eating souls by means of a book instead of just eating them. He shared this book with other hollows, creating more of them for them to use, and designing them so that not only would using them make the other hollows not have to physically eat people, but so that it would also make the original hollow gain more power. So the first hollow was just greedy and lazy and was making the other hollows do his work for him.

They separated themselves from the other hollows, and throughout the years, the terminology got mixed up—or they purposefully started calling themselves Shinigami, since they felt themselves to be above other hollows. Or something like that. I don't know. I didn't have it completely worked out.

But at any rate, that's the deal. These hollows who call themselves Shinigami continue to live on in this other dimension that they created for themselves to hide out in, occasionally coming out to kill more people with their death notes, providing themselves with the spirit energy needed to keep surviving...

And that's why, even though there should be lots of powerful hollows in the area, there aren't any. Because the criminals aren't just getting killed by the death note, their actual souls are being consumed by it, distributing the spirit energy to the "shinigami" who owns the death note.

... Anyway. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It never would have gone anywhere once the explanations were done. So now it just sits around collecting dust...


	2. Bleached Twilight

D= I apologize. I apologize many, many times. This is my Bleach/Twilight crossover.

For your information, I really liked the first Twilight book when I first read it. Then, as I read more and more of the series, I liked it less and less. But I maintain that the first one was okay. (The movie turned Edward incredibly creepy-looking, making his creepy-actions even worse, and so totally ruined it for me...)

Anyway, this was written before the last book, Breaking Dawn came out, and therefore, I _assumed_ that they were going to stick with their _original_ plan, and go get married and live in Alaska until Bella had become not-rabid enough to deal with living with normal people for extended periods of time. But noooo, Bella had to turn into a Super-Mary-Sue and become the perfect person, and—right, shutting up now before I get into a big tirade of Twilight's many problems...

... I also apologize because of the rambling about random subjects that the characters do here, especially in the first set-up scene. Again, I wrote this a really long time ago... The things they ramble about were things that fascinated me at the time.

* * *

"We're lost," Ichigo complained. "And it's freezing out here."

Rukia rolled her eyes. "Quit complaining," she said, trying to make sense of the map in her hands. "I'll figure this out in a minute..."

"It's Alaska, Kurosaki-kun," Inoue giggled. "Of course it's cold."

Ichigo sighed. "I still don't get why we're here. We _should_ be back home, training for the next time Aizen decides to dump Arrancar on us..."

"Ever heard of a vacation, Ichigo?" Rukia snapped at him. "Aizen is not going to be attacking again for a long time. We made sure of that when we not only took out over half of the Espada during our raid on Hueco Mundo, but also damaged the Hougyoku in the process. If you do nothing but train all the time, you're going to make yourself crazy."

"Besides, I've always wanted to see what America was like," Inoue admitted cheerfully. "I think it's cool that Karakura High School has a sister school here. Spending three weeks here will be fun, and we'll get to learn so much!"

Ichigo scowled. "But our sister school had to be in _Alaska_, of all places," he complained again, shivering in the cold. "Why not California, or Florida, where it's _warm_?"

"I don't mind the cold," Chado commented.

"Then you're crazy," Ichigo insisted.

Ishida sighed in annoyance. "Rukia, have you figured out where that nature path is yet? At this rate, we'll end up walking more around here than we will on the trails..."

"Give me a minute!" Rukia frowned at the paper again. "This isn't a very good map. Clearly, the quickest way to the trails from the high school is to cut across this college campus, and yet they didn't label where any of the buildings on campus are, so I can't figure out where we are..."

"Let me see it," Ishida took the map from her and looked it over himself. Then, with a small sigh, he rubbed the back of his head. "Eh, where did you get this map? You're right, it's horrible."

Rukia shrugged irritably. "It was in the hotel room."

"Excuse me?" a soft voice, speaking in English, cut into the conversation. "I don't mean to be rude, but you appear to be lost. Need some help?"

They all turned, surprised, and found two people, apparently from the college, standing a short distance away. One was a girl of about average height with long, brown hair with golden highlights. The other was a boy, taller than she was, with short brownish red hair, also with golden highlights. Both had pale complexions and dark golden eyes.

Abruptly, Rukia smiled. "That would be great," she replied, switching to English herself. "We're trying to find the nature path... It's around here, isn't it?"

The girl nodded, grinning. "Sure. We can show you where it is. We'll even go with you, the trails are beautiful."

The boy rolled his eyes with amusement. "You just don't want to work on your schoolwork," he said lightly.

"Of course!" the girl laughed. "It's boring. Come on!" She turned and began to lead the way down the street. With relieved smiles, the others followed.

"I'm Edward, by the way," the boy introduced himself politely as they walked. "Edward Cullen."

"And I'm Bella Cullen," the girl smiled over her shoulder.

"Nice to meet you," Rukia returned. The other four also murmured polite acknowledgments. "Are you brother and sister?"

Bella laughed lightly, holding up her left hand and showing off a ring. "Married. For almost a year and a half, now."

"Oh! I see. That's cool." Rukia smiled a little awkwardly. "You must have married right out of high school, then..."

Bella nodded with a slight frown. "Yeah, his idea."

"So you five are...?" Edward inquired.

"I'm Kuchiki Rukia," Rukia introduced herself. "And this is Kurosaki Ichigo, Ishida Uryuu, Inoue Orihime, and Sado Yasutora. We're visiting from Japan."

Bella smiled at them. "Nice to meet all of you. I've never been to Japan, and I'm afraid I don't speak Japanese, either. Edward does, though."

Edward nodded, also smiling, and switched to Japanese. "Nice to meet you, Kuchiki-san, Kurosaki-san, Ishida-san, Inoue-san, and Sado-san. Welcome to Alaska."

"-san?" Bella asked her husband curiously.

"An honorific," he explained, returning to using English. "A general term of respect. When you first meet someone, it's polite to call them by their family name, followed by san. Right?"

Rukia nodded. "Your Japanese is good," she complimented.

"Thank you." Edward said modestly. "Your English is better than my Japanese."

Bella turned to the other four. "Do you guys know English? You haven't said hardly anything since we walked up."

Ichigo frowned. "Don't assume that I can't talk just because I have nothing to say," he said irritably.

"Kurosaki-kun, don't be rude," Inoue scolded. To Bella she said, "Don't mind him. He's in a bad mood because he doesn't really want to be here. We forced him to take a vacation."

Bella laughed.

Ishida smiled. "To answer your question, yes, we all know English to some extent. Although, it is difficult at times to understand you, because you are talking so fast. We're not used to the language... Kuchiki-san is probably the best of us with different languages."

Ichigo rolled his eyes. That was an understatement. Despite the fact that she had learned most of her modern Japanese by reading romance and horror mangas, Rukia had learned the language almost overnight.

"Oh, I see. I'll try to talk more slowly, then," Bella said cheerfully. "So is -kun another honorific?"

Rukia nodded. "Yes, it is mostly used to refer to male friends. –chan is another, used to refer to female friends, or to children, among other things. Other honorifics, like -sama and -dono indicate a deep respect. Dropping the honorific completely implies a certain closeness to the one you're referring to, especially when you use their given name."

"Okay, I understand now," Bella nodded, smiling. "That actually makes sense; you can tell how somebody thinks of you by what they call you. We should do that here, Edward!"

Edward merely shrugged with an amused smile.

"By the way, I hope you don't mind, but we're going to stop off at our house," Bella mentioned. "It's not far out of the way, and I want to drop off our book bags and let Carlisle know where we're going."

"We don't mind," Rukia said. "Who is Carlisle?"

"My father," Edward explained. "He's a doctor, and for the past week or so he's been staying with us while attending a medical seminar up here. My sister, Alice, came with him, so she's also visiting us."

Ishida smiled. "That's interesting. My father is also a doctor. He owns a large hospital in Karakura town, where we're from."

"My family runs a local clinic," Ichigo added. "It's a lot smaller than Ishida's hospital, but we still get a lot of patients."

Bella grinned. "You two would probably get along well with Carlisle, then. He's actually probably still in his meetings at this point, so we're just going to leave a note, but maybe you can meet him later."

"That will be nice," Ishida said politely.

Soon they reached the house. Ichigo was impressed at the size of it. It wasn't exactly a mansion, but it was still a good sized house. "You can keep up payments on a house like this and still have enough money for college?" he asked as they followed Bella up the front walk.

Bella looked displeased, but Edward gave him a wry grin. "Actually, the house is paid for already. Carlisle bought it a while ago, and when we decided to go to college up here, he gave it to us."

"Your father is very generous, then," Rukia commented.

Edward just shrugged and held the door open for them. "Wait here in the front room for just a moment. We won't be too long."

Bella took his bag from him and headed upstairs to where Ichigo assumed the bedrooms must be. Edward headed down a first floor hallway towards what looked like the living room. Both returned fairly quickly after that, and then they were all out the door again.

"It's mostly his mother's fault," Bella informed them as they walked. "Our house, that is. Esme loves fixing up old houses. Carlisle came from a long line of doctors, and so there's always been money in the family. When she finishes fixing up one house, they move to another house that needs fixing up. Sometimes they sell the old one, sometimes they keep it."

"That's amazing," Ichigo shook his head. "I can't even imagine being able to afford something like that."

Bella sighed. "I just wish he would stop buying things for us. I'm not used to having money spent on me."

Edward just shook his head silently, smiling.

"And here's the trailhead," Bella announced. "See, you weren't too far off."

"Great," Rukia grinned, using a pen to mark their path on her map.

Ishida pushed his glasses further up onto his nose. "Ano... Kuchiki-san, maybe you should just toss that map and find a better one later... Instead of trying to write in everything yourself...?"

"Hush. I'll remember it better if I write it," she returned. "Alright, let's go!"

Bella laughed at her enthusiasm and the seven of them all began to walk.

* * *

Most of the time, Edward found his ability to read other peoples' minds to be annoying. Some people had such petty, brainless thoughts, it was a wonder that they could function properly.

At the moment, though, he was glad for them; the Japanese high schoolers that he and Bella were walking with were very interesting.

For one thing, they all thought in their native language. Edward understood Japanese just as well as English, so this wasn't a problem, but it was interesting to listen to them mentally translate everything they heard from English to Japanese, and then translate what they wanted to say from Japanese into English.

It was also interesting to note that they all had different ways of addressing each other. Just taking Kurosaki-san, for example; Kuchiki-san and Sado-san both called him Ichigo, while Inoue-san used Kurosaki-kun, and Ishida-san just used Kurosaki.

But the most interesting thing that he was noticing about these students was that their thoughts kept referencing strange things. The word shinigami kept popping up in random places, for example.

Edward knew that the English translation for shinigami was Death God, and that the Japanese had a legend about the Shinigami that was similar to the Grim Reaper. But he didn't understand why the word was being used as if they personally knew one...

Plus, Kurosaki-san kept thinking that he would rather be back at home training to fight against people he called Arrancar, or sometimes he used the word Espada. Both of those words were Spanish, but he didn't seem to be using them like Spanish words, but rather as names.

Then, at one point he had wondered to himself whether or not he could convince some people called Vaizards to come and train with him here.

Vaizards? Edward was confused, and the mental pictures that Kurosaki had associated with those words didn't help him figure out what he was referring to either. He supposed that they were probably names of different teams for a sword fighting group at school.

Of course, Edward knew better than to actually ask any of them what the words meant. He wasn't about to blow his cover just to find out something that was probably inconsequential anyway.

Instead, he returned his attention to the outward conversation. He wasn't particularly interested in what they were saying, but it was better than thinking in circles trying to understand their strange thoughts.

Bella had asked the group how the school system in Japan worked, and Ishida-san was in the process of explaining. Occasionally, Bella would interrupt, either with questions or to point out parts of the scenery that they were passing by.

The trail they were walking along wasn't a complicated one. It was a forested path that followed along the river for some distance before bridging across it and going back up on the other side in one large loop. Along this main path, some side trails led down to the water's edge, or to various lookout points.

"This is one of my favorite lookout points," Bella was saying now, skipping ahead and leaning across the railing. "See the white off in the distance there? That's actually a glacier!"

Kuchiki-san grinned, joining her up at the railing. "Really? It's all ice? That's so cool!" _It's like a larger version of Sode no Shirayuki's first dance,_ she thought to herself, for some reason suddenly picturing a pure white sword in her mind.

"You _would_ like something made completely of ice, Rukia," Kurosaki-san smirked at her, mentally picturing the same sword. Kuchiki-san turned and mock glared at him.

Edward shook his head slightly. Speaking of thoughts that made no sense...

"It's sooo pretty!" Inoue-san sighed. Almost instinctively, Edward tuned out her thoughts. He had found out early on that the girl was unbelievably ditzy, and her thoughts tended to jump from one subject to another at surprising and annoying speeds. "Don't you think, Kurosaki-kun?"

Kurosaki-san just shrugged. "Whatever. It's just ice." _This is such a waste of time._ His thoughts had returned to that again. _Honestly, Aizen is definitely preparing his next attack, and we're all on some dumb nature hike in another country..._

Bella laughed at Kurosaki-san's obvious boredom. "We can move on if you want. Ishida-san, sorry for interrupting you again."

"That's all right," Ishida-san was flustered to have her attention suddenly on him again. "But you know, you really can drop the -san honorific if you want to... It's just, it sounds odd with your accent..."

Bella giggled again. "All right, Ishida."

Ishida turned slightly red. "S-So, as I was saying, our high school is pretty much like high school in America. One main difference is that we have to take entrance exams to be accepted into secondary school, while for you it's compulsory. Also, back home, the students stay in one place while the teachers move from classroom to classroom for each class, rather than the other way around."

"Hmm," Bella frowned. "To some degree that makes sense. Why make a whole class of students move when you can just have the teacher move? But then the teachers can't personalize the rooms, or keep all of the books and materials they need in the classrooms..."

"Both ways work," Sado said simply, one of the few things Edward had heard him say all day.

Sado's thoughts were much the same way; simple. Mostly he was merely observant of the actions of the others, and yet he was by no means slow or stupid. Edward found himself respecting that silent intelligence.

Bella smiled at him. "I suppose you're right. So, you are all in high school, then?"

"Yup. We're all sophomores in high school; 16 years old," Kurosaki informed them. Then he smirked. _Except for Rukia, she's quite a bit older, _he added to himself. _But they don't need to know that..._

_Well, I'm only pretending to be a sophomore..._ Kuchiki was also thinking, smiling.

Edward blinked. Pretending? That sounded suspicious...

"That's cool," Bella said, glancing at Edward. She had obviously noted his confusion, but she continued the conversation. "Personally, I'm glad to be out of high school, now. Some parts of it were a total nightmare..."

"I hope you're not referring to meeting me," Edward joked lightly.

Bella laughed.

_She thinks that _her_ high school experience was a nightmare,_ Kurosaki rolled his eyes. _I don't care what she went through, nothing beats all this Shinigami junk that's happened to us..._

There was that shinigami word again... Edward inwardly scowled, but made sure his outward appearance remained neutral.

"So, what are you studying here at the University of Alaska?" Kuchiki asked curiously.

"At the moment, we're getting all of our basic education courses out of the way," Bella explained. "Math, English, Psych, that sort of thing. Next semester we'll officially declare our majors. I'm thinking of going..."

She trailed off when she realized that Ishida, Inoue, Sado, and Kuchiki had all frozen in place a few paces back, their eyes wide. "What's wrong?"

Edward focused in on their thoughts. What was going on?

_Arrancar,_ was the thought that was running through each of their minds as they glanced around at each other. Strangely enough, they all seemed able to sense something; a slight change in the air pressure is what it seemed like. Edward himself didn't sense anything different, but there was no doubt that these four did.

Kurosaki turned, looking them over with confusion. "Is it...?"

"Yeah. It's an Arrancar," Kuchiki replied darkly.

Kurosaki frowned, then concentrated hard. A moment later, he, too, could feel that pressure, and he confirmed what Kuchiki had said. _Why is there an Arrancar here of all places? It must have followed us!_

"Arrancar?" Bella asked, confused. "What's that?" Her question went unanswered.

And then the wind changed direction, blowing a strange scent towards Edward. His eyes widened. Sense of smell was one of a vampire's greatest resources, and it was incredibly rare for him not to be able to recognize a scent. Yet, he had definitely never smelled this one before. Whatever it was, it worried him; it had the distinct scent of a predator.

He saw Bella stiffen as well as the scent reached her. She looked searchingly over at him, but he shook his head slightly. He had no idea what this was, but he suspected that the five others did.

"How far away is it?" Kurosaki asked Kuchiki suddenly, switching to Japanese.

She shook her head. "I can't tell exactly," she replied in the same language. "I don't have my phone with me. We're supposed to be on vacation!"

"It's close," Ishida said sharply, staring off in the direction that the scent had come from. "And it's coming closer. It's strong, too, but not quite Espada level..."

Kuchiki scowled, digging in her pockets. _I left the phone behind, but I still have my gikongan, so at least I won't have to worry about the gigai_. "Ichigo, you didn't happen to bring Kon with you, did you?"

"Do I ever willingly take Kon with me anywhere?" Kurosaki returned irritably. _Irritating, perverted lion..._ "He's back at the hotel room. I've got my badge, though."

"Great," Kuchiki said sarcastically. _That means I'll have to get the gikongan to take care of his body... _"Okay, there's not enough time to get these two far enough away that they won't get caught up in the fight, so Inoue, you're going to have to protect them."

Inoue nodded. "Right."

_It's also likely that the Arrancar is here to try and capture Inoue again,_ Kuchiki suddenly realized. "Ishida, you help Inoue. Chado, Ichigo, let's make sure we're prepared when it gets here."

Ishida moved so that he was standing between the two confused college students and the approaching Arrancar. Inoue quickly joined him. Ahead of them, standing by himself, Sado took a fighting position.

Kuchiki popped something small and green into her mouth and swallowed it quickly. She blinked rapidly, then nodded sharply and ran to Kurosaki, who had suddenly collapsed and now lay unmoving on the ground. Grabbing him by one arm, she dragged him over to where Bella and Edward stood, stunned.

"Kuchiki-san, what's going on?" Bella asked breathlessly. "What's wrong with Kuro-"

She was interrupted by a large crash as several nearby trees suddenly toppled towards them for no apparent reason. Eyes wide, Inoue threw up her hands. "Santen Kesshun! I Reject!" The trees crashed down onto an invisible force field some distance above them, then were shoved off to one side, landing harmlessly on the side of the trail.

Ishida brought his right hand up, holding it out parallel to the ground. A cross shaped charm on a bracelet he was wearing swung upwards, hovering in front of his palm. He brought his other hand up and pulled back, as if drawing a bow, and kept his hands aimed toward the now clear spot where the trees used to stand.

Edward focused his power on Ishida, trying to figure out what it was he was doing, and what he was aiming at. He was shocked at what he saw.

In his vision, standing in that clear area was a giant of a man, dressed in strange, white clothes and wearing a strange mask. Ishida was holding a glowing blue bow, and had a shaft of blue light aimed, ready to fire, at the man's head.

Ahead, where Sado stood, were two other people that Edward couldn't see in his regular vision. They were both dressed in black, old-fashioned Japanese style clothes. The one on Sado's right was holding a pure white sword, one that Edward recognized as the one Kurosaki and Kuchiki had been thinking about earlier. The one on his left was also wielding a sword, though this one almost looked too big for him to carry.

The one on the right spoke and Edward realized with a shock that it was Kuchiki. "_What do you want here, Arrancar?_" she yelled at it in Japanese. Edward noted that he could only hear her voice through Ishida's observations; there was nothing in his own range of hearing.

He glanced beside him, making sure Kuchiki was still standing there. She was, and she was watching the confrontation ahead of them with a serious look on her face. Kurosaki was slung carelessly over one shoulder.

Edward returned his attention to the black-clad Kuchiki. How was she in two places at once? For that matter, how was Kurosaki in two places? For now he realized that the other person on Sado's left was the orange-haired teen.

The Arrancar (or so Edward assumed) laughed at Kuchiki's question. "_Well, I was ordered to keep an eye on the five of you, to see if there was a reason behind traveling all this way... But it turns out, you're far more pathetic than the rumors portray you to be. I just couldn't turn down this perfect opportunity!_"

Kurosaki's grip tightened on his sword. "_What's that supposed to mean?_" he demanded.

The Arrancar smirked. "_You don't have the supplies you usually use, you don't have any way to contact Soul Society, who saved your butts last time, and now you have a few weaklings you'll have to protect. What better time to take you down?_"

Ishida scowled. "I think we've heard enough." He loosed his arrow. The Arrancar dodged to one side and the arrow struck a tree behind him, causing wood chips to fly everywhere. Bella, still unable to see or hear anything, gasped in surprise.

With a laugh, the Arrancar called out. "_Attack now!_" Instantly, the air around them seemed to crack, and two more people, also wearing the white and black garb and varied strange masks, stepped out of thin air to stand beside the Arrancar.

"_Chado, get the one on the left, Rukia, the one on the right._" Kurosaki directed. He smirked. "_I'll take the leader._"

Sado nodded and ran at the left most Arrancar, his left fist raised and glowing. Edward blinked at that. In his own vision, Sado's hand looked normal, but in Ishida's vision, the large teen's arms were both transformed. They were both black with white and red stripes, and the right one looked almost like a giant shield.

Kuchiki took a step backward, holding her sword out in front of her in one hand with the other crossed strangely over her wrist. "_Hadou number 4, Byakurai!_" The word meant white lightning, and what happened next was that exactly. A bolt of lightning arced from Kuchiki's palm towards the other Arrancar.

The Arrancar dodged it and it blasted through another tree, blackening it instantly. The Arrancar smirked and ran suddenly at Kuchiki, who ducked under his arm, turned, and swung her sword downwards. "_Some no Mai. Tsukishiro!_" A circle of white began to form on the ground around her.

Edward's attention was torn from that battle, however, when he realized that the first Arrancar who had appeared had totally ignored Kurosaki and was headed straight towards them.

_...attack... hit... weaklings first..._ the Arrancar's thoughts were muddled, as if Edward was hearing them through static. Frankly, Edward was relieved to find that he could read the giant's mind at all, considering he couldn't actually see or hear it.

With a smirk, the Arrancar lunged at Ishida, one hand outstretched as if ready to do a karate chop. Instantly, Kurosaki was there, blocking the hand with the flat of his huge sword and forcing the Arrancar back.

_...keep attacking..... can't see it... gotta move!_ Edward recognized Kurosaki's mental voice, but again, the words seemed muddled by static. "_Ishida, Inoue, get those two out of here! They can't see him, so he's targeting them!_" he called over his shoulder.

"Right!" Inoue turned to Bella and Edward. "Follow me. You probably can't see, but we're being attacked, and we need to get somewhere safe."

Before they could move, the Arrancar suddenly twisted away from Kurosaki and came at him from the side. Caught off guard, Kurosaki was able to bring his sword up to block, but the force of the blow sent him flying into a tree, splintering it. The Arrancar grinned and started dashing towards them again.

Ishida quickly drew back his bow again and sent a barrage of arrows towards the Arrancar, who simply used his arms to deflect them and kept coming. By this time, Kurosaki was on his feet again, and he ran at the Arrancar, his sword raised.

The Arrancar ignored him and, his hand glowing with energy, punched at Ishida. Inoue's hands flew up again and a large yellow triangle appeared between the two. The Arrancar's fist hit her shield and stopped, but the Arrancar simply smirked and hit it again with his other hand. The triangle began to crack under the pressure and Inoue cried out.

Kurosaki caught up to the Arrancar then and once again forced him away from the group. "_Knock it off! Your opponent is _me_!_" he yelled, his static filled thoughts full of irritation.

* * *

And that's where I abruptly got tired of writing this and just quit. You're welcome.

This was, obviously, written before I found out that there might have been a possibility of Twilight written from Edward's point of view. As you might imagine, the idea of that thrilled me when I heard about it. I was disappointed to find out that she wasn't going to write it after all...

Eh, This scene was actually planned out to a specific conclusion. The idea was that during the fight, Ichigo winds up injured and bleeding (as usual), and then gets back into his body at the end of the fight, not bothering to heal first... The wounds appear on Ichigo's body, and Bella, still newly vampire'd, goes a little nuts and attacks him. Ichigo freaks out, bails out of his body again, and is able to hold her off mostly because she can't see him that way and also because Edward jumps in to pull her back.

Carlisle and Alice, having been warned by one of Alice's visions and running to come help as quickly as they could, show up then and Alice gets Bella away. Carlisle begins trying to tend to Ichigo, only to find him, uh... dead.

To assure him he's okay, Ichigo gets back into his body... and immediately regrets it. Apparently, Bella bit him when she attacked.

... Yeah. So Ichigo's spirit form is completely unaffected, but his body becomes a vampire.

... =D?

Please don't kill me... I was very, very young at the time.** [file created: December 4, 2007]** Hey! Stop giving away my secrets, computer! D=**  
**

(Hides in shame)


	3. Quest against Abandonment!

This one isn't a Bleach story. It was written years and years ago (Year 2004, according to my computer), as a contest entry to a short story contest on Neopets. I didn't win anything. Probably for good reason.

But this one, at least, is complete, anyway... Still not very good, though...

* * *

Tahra sighed, looking down at her slightly pitiful neohome. The place had a total of two rooms—a cardboard front room and a straw bedroom—and a small garden that didn't have any flowers or exotic plants of any kind in it.

Furniture was either non-existent or completely random and strewn everywhere, ranging from a lone traditional chair in the middle of an otherwise empty room to a stained glass window placed in a corner, allowing little or no light into the house.

There was no lighting, no fireplace, not even a bed to speak of. Tahra had nothing but a beanbag given out by the advent calendar and the chair to sit down in.

The Aisha looked at it sideways for a moment, then shrugged and skipped off to go play some games with her owner. Takigrl448 may not use her neopoints for a house, but then nobody was ever there anyway, so it really didn't matter too much. The place was really more of an item storehouse than a living-in house.

Tahra headed first to the Pyramids game, knowing that Takigrl448 was often entranced by the flash-animated cards, trying to clear the pyramid and mostly not achieving this. Scanning the area, she stopped to watch a few games as neopets and users worked together to puzzle them out, but left when she didn't find Taki.

Just a quick glance told her that she wasn't at Warf Rescue Team or at Freaky Factory, also games that the girl enjoyed. Fyora's Quest, Destruct-O-Match II, Cheat, Castle of Eliv Thade, Meerca Chase, Secret Image, Splat-A-Sloth, Whack-A-Staff-Member, Ultimate Bullseye, Dice-A-Roo, Scratchcard Kiosk, she just didn't seem to be at any of her usual gaming spots...

'_Time to head to the shop and see if she's there,_" she thought in slight confusion. She skipped down the path and up to the shop. Inside, the odd shopkeeper the two of them had hired, a mysterious girl who didn't really exist anywhere but in the shop, known to them as Snowflake, smiled and greeted her warmly.

"Have you seen Takigrl448 around?" Tahra asked, cocking her head slightly.

"Not since yesterday, I'm afraid." Snowflake answered cheerily. "Did you check all the games?"

"Yeah." Tahra replied, somewhat gloomy. "I just don't know where she could be..."

"She'll show up, don't worry." Snowflake said optimistically. "Try the neoboards, she goes in there every so often, doesn't she?"

Tahra brightened. "Oh, yeah! Thanks, Snowflake!" She raced off to continue her search.

But Takigrl448 wasn't in the boards, either. And asking around only revealed to her that nobody else had seen her either. Not since yesterday.

Every part of Tahra's body felt like drooping. Today wasn't one of the days that Taki wasn't allowed on-line... so where in Neopia was she...?

Tahra continued her search until nightfall, but her efforts were fruitless. Taki just simply wasn't here. Finally, Tahra had no choice but to simply go to bed and hope that Taki would be back by the time she woke up.

She curled up in her advent calendar beanbag and slowly, agonizingly slowly, drifted off into a fitful sleep.

Taki wasn't back when Tahra woke up the next morning, so she made the rounds again, searching for her poor, lost owner. Still nobody had seen her.

Munching thoughtfully on a Brightvale Berry that was in Taki's inventory, Tahra wondered what had happened. Maybe Taki had gone on vacation and had been so excited that she had forgotten to tell her about it or to place her in the care of the Neolodge, which she usually did before going on vacation.

Somehow, that seemed unlikely. Perhaps her parents had forced her to go stay the night at her grandma's house. Or maybe she had gotten into trouble and been banned from the computer for a few days.

That had to be it. Taki had been banned for a few days, and she would be back on soon.

Tahra sighed. While she awaited Taki's return, she wasn't allowed to do anything. She really wasn't even allowed to be eating the food in Taki's inventory without permission.

Unless she had her owner with her, Tahra wasn't allowed to play games, buy food, eat food, play with toys, chat on the boards, or really anything.

"I don't care if you're the descendant of King Coltzan himself, go get your owner, and then we'll talk haggling!" one rather rude shopkeeper yelled after a starving Tahra tried to buy herself some food. Without another word, she was banned from the shop.

With yet another sigh, Tahra plopped herself down in a growth of long grass near the neoboards, listening to the varying conversations float by.

The next few days went by with a dense haze. Nothing really happened the entire time, and to keep her mind off of her rumbling stomach that was a result of Taki's now empty inventory, Tahra spent most of her time sleeping on the patch of grass near the boards until the night watchmen ushered all the Neopians off to bed in their Neohomes.

The monotony of life was so rarely broken that Tahra hardly noticed the passing of several months. One day was different, however.

"Abandoned too, huh?" a hard male voice said as somebody flopped down in the patch of grass next to her.

Tahra blinked, looking up at the blue Ixi that was now watching her. "Abandoned? No, I haven't been abandoned. Would I be out here in the open air if my owner had abandoned me?"

The Ixi began to respond, but Tahra didn't give him a chance. "No! I wouldn't! I would be in the Neopet Adoption Center!"

The Ixi was silent for a moment before he said quietly. "There's more than one way to be abandoned, you know."

Tahra glared at him. "Who do you think you are, anyway? What makes you think you know so much about me, huh?"

"My name is Feshka. The last time I saw my owner was over a year ago. I've been watching you, and I get the feeling that your owner has abandoned you, and Neopets in general, just like mine has." Feshka's face became gloomy.

Tahra gaped at him. The possibility had never even crossed her mind. "Taki isn't like that! She'll come back! You'll see! Not everybody in the world is heartless!" She got up and ran as fast as she could, not looking back and not caring that the Ixi didn't answer.

Feshka silently watched her run until she was out of sight. "You'll learn." He said sadly. "You'll learn."

Days turned into months for Tahra, and the months finally turned into a year or so. It was hard to keep track of time when everything went by so eventlessly.

Every now and then, Tahra would spot Feshka watching her from the top of a hill and she avoided him as much as possible. She'd show him. Her owner would never abandon Neopets. That was simply inhumane.

Tahra had long since gotten used to the constant of being hungry. Neopets never die from hunger, so she never had to worry about that, and her will to keep searching for her lost owner kept her from going to any extremes.

Another year went by. And then another. Doubts began to creep into her mind. What if the aloof Ixi was right?

But she never let herself believe it. An abandoned neopet has no future, and she refused to let herself have that. Never. She was not worthless.

Her will slowly began to break down as year after year went by. Finally, the next time she saw Feshka, she went over to talk to him.

He was sitting in the patch of grass by the neoboards talking with a few other neopets; a Zafara, a Grundo, and a Meerca.

"Oh, hi." Feshka said when he noticed her sitting on the edge of the group. "Haven't seen you for a while."

Tahra shifted uncomfortably. "I didn't want to believe it." She said softly. "I still can't. How... how could Taki do this to me?"

Feshka patted her on the back. "Hey, it happens to the best of us. This is Henswarthy the Grundo, Drakea29 the Meerca, and Dai_Hoshi the Zafara. They've been abandoned as well."

"Nice to meet you." Tahra said shyly. "I'm Tahra."

The others smiled kindly. Feshka cleared his throat. "Ok, so now we bring the meeting to order."

Tahra blinked. "What meeting?"

"Why, this one, of course. We're "The Outcasts." We're joining together to try and get the other Neopians to notice us and put a stop to account abandonment." Feshka said, grinning at her.

"Cool!" Tahra beamed. "That's a great idea! So what are we doing today?"

Feshka gestured to a large sheet of paper. "Making a poster. First we gotta get us some markers. Who's got the best handwriting?"

As the others began divvying out assignments, Tahra silently began to plot. '_Today, a poster...'_ she thought deviously, '_Tomorrow, all of Neopia!_'

* * *

... Yeah, that's it. Sadly, this is probably my best work from that period of time in my writing...

Never really went anywhere, though. Oh well.


	4. Magic in Artistry

Ah, I really wanted to write something that didn't have any Yu-Gi-Oh in it, back in September of 2007. This was before I'd ever seen Bleach for the first time, so instead I focused on Harry Potter.

I'd already written a (very bad) Harry Potter/Yu-Gi-Oh crossover previously, so I was _fairly_ confident with my ability to write him in character... Ah, anyway, that's up to your judgment to see if I did that or not. I don't think I did, but bleh.

* * *

Petunia Dursley was scowling at some papers that were sitting neatly on the very corner of her sparkling clean kitchen counter.

The papers were a perfectly normal thing for a family such as theirs. They described several courses that were available for her child to take during the upcoming school year, including a few extracurricular classes. But that wasn't why she was scowling at them.

No, she was scowling because instead of a single packet of papers, she had received two, with an attached note requiring that other boy participate in at least one of the optional courses. "His grades in other subjects are such that we feel he would be more focused in one of these classes."

The other boy was nothing like her Dudley. He was rude and ungrateful, and he never managed to keep himself looking nice. He was extremely unintelligent, she knew, for all of his grades were completely abysmal compared to those that her Dudley received. Plus, he was _Her_ son, and Petunia just knew that he would end up having the same strangeness that she did.

Petunia also knew that the boy would love to take the extracurricular classes, but that he would never do well in any of them. And the fact that the teachers were requiring him to have one would only make the boy insufferably smug.

After deciding that glaring at the papers wasn't going to make them burst into flames or disappear, (which, she also decided, would be a very bad thing to happen anyway, considering her husband's reaction,) she sighed and felt grateful that at least the extra classes didn't cost any money.

The best thing to do about it, she decided, was to force him to take a class that either was completely useless, or one that he hated so much that he wouldn't get arrogant about it. A class that was both would be best.

Picking up one of the packets, she flipped through it, looking at some of the available optional classes.

World Languages... He could hardly speak proper English, and they want to try to make him learn different languages?

Computers... Ha, the boy had never touched a computer in his life; her Dudley had taken care of that.

Debate... As if the brat didn't talk back to her enough!

School Newspaper... The boy didn't know a thing about what went on around him, he couldn't write about it to save his life.

Science... That had always been _Her_ forte, and giving him additional classes in that would be inexcusable.

Art...

Petunia almost smiled at it. The boy didn't have a creative spark in him, she was sure. And the subject was surely useless, especially in her husband's eyes... Plus, it was such an ambiguous subject, with no good way to grade it... so while the boy might actually receive good marks in such a class, this wouldn't actually mean anything, so her husband and her Dudley wouldn't be upset with him.

Not that she cared too much about such things as the boy's well being, of course. He lived in the cupboard under their staircase, after all. But, after all, he was _Her_ son...

Her mind made up, she circled the art class on the form. But just before she could turn to the accompanying sheet and sign it, her Dudley walked in.

"What are you doing, mum?" he sweetly asked, standing on his tiptoes to look at the paper.

Petunia smiled. "Signing up classes for-"

Dudley frowned as he noted which of the many classes had been circled. "Art? Art, mum?" his voice grew slightly high pitched with disbelief.

"Yes, dear, it's for-"

Dudley looked completely dismayed. "But muuuum..." he whined. "I'm 9 years old, now! I'll need to be taking classes that will impress people! Dad says art is for poor losers. Do you want me to be a poor loser, mum?" his eyes filled with tears.

Horrified that her precious son would think such a thing of her, she sought quickly to calm his fears. "Of course not, Duddy-kins! Look, dear, your packet is over here." She picked it up and showed him the many classes she had signed him up for.

His tears stopped abruptly as he took the packet and looked it over, smiling with delight. Then his expression turned to one of confusion. "Then the other packet... the art class...?"

Petunia smiled again. "Don't worry about it, Dudders. It's just for _him_."

"What's for me?" came a voice from the kitchen doorway, as the aforementioned boy stumbled in, obviously having just woken up. Without waiting for an answer, he headed towards one of the cupboards and began pulling out ingredients for breakfast, as he did every morning.

"Don't take that tone of voice with me, boy," she snapped at him.

Dudley smirked at his cousin. "You get to be more of a freak at school this year, freak! Look, mum signed you up for some art class, while I get to take all the fun classes!"

Harry simply raised an eyebrow and went back to preparing the food. "Good for you," he said shortly. "What art class is this, Aunt Petunia?"

"One of the optional courses." She refused to explain more to him. She knew that he would know what she was talking about. "Come on, Dudders, let's go to the dining room for breakfast." She turned back to the boy. "And it better not be late or burned today, got it?"

"Yes, Ma'am." The ungrateful brat said sarcastically.

Petunia glared at him, then sighed. Some people were just not worth it.

* * *

(Later that year)

"Let go of me, quit pushing me around!" Harry was not in a good mood, and the regular bullies, his cousin included, weren't helping.

"What's the matter, freak?" one of the usual tormentors asked. "Are you going to be late for your sissy freak art class?"

This brought a chorus of snickers from the other boys. "Sissy art class!"

"Freak!"

Harry ducked his head and shoved through them all as hard as he could. If he was late one more time...

"Oooh, the Potter freak's trying to show his muscle!" one of the boys grabbed his arm and pulled him back into the circle.

"Don't worry, Freak, no need for that! We'll give you your own personal escort!" This was Dudley. There were more snickers.

Harry didn't like the sound of that. "Thanks, I can manage."

"Oh, but you'll need an escort in a few minutes. One to the nurse, that is!"

Harry knew he hadn't liked the sound of that. Dudley gave him a malicious grin, then signaled to a few of his cronies. Harry very quickly found himself on the ground, his arms attempting feebly to protect his head from the blows of their feet.

Then, rescue came in the form of the principal. "What's going on here?"

"Harry fell," came the immediate response from one of Dudley's goons. "And we were helping him up, isn't that right?"

The group all made noises of affirmation, and one of them pulled Harry roughly to his feet.

The principal looked Harry over and frowned. "Is that really what happened?" the question was directed at Harry. The other boys gave him a look telling him just what was in store for him if he answered incorrectly.

Harry frowned, tempted to rat on them, just this once. But it wouldn't be worth it, he knew. "Yeah," he said thickly, brushing himself off. Without another word, he headed for his class, aware that the principal was studying him as he left and not caring.

This sort of thing happened almost every day. It was nearing the end of the school year, and he'd been taking this new art class the whole year so far. Dudley and his gang still hadn't gotten bored of harassing him while he was on his way to his class following lunch time and, of course, the harassment was always worse on those days when he had art then.

Entering the classroom, Harry noted that he was once again the last person there, so he took his usual seat in the back of the room. Looking around, he sighed in relief. Today seemed to be a free drawing day, so there wouldn't be any particular graded assignment to be working on, as long as he worked on drawing something. These sort of class periods happened maybe once a week, but he was always glad when they occurred.

Quickly, he dug through his pack until he came to the now slightly worn sketchbook the teacher had given to him. Flipping through the pages until he came to a blank sheet, about halfway through the book, he pulled out a few pencils and began to sketch.

He really wasn't sure what he was drawing. He never did, really, he just drew the first thing that came to mind.

He had learned early on, of course, never to show the Dursleys any of his artwork when he drew like this, though. If they hated his talking about dreams of 'unnatural things', they would hate more his pictures of such things.

Now, what was appearing on his paper looked sort of like Dudley, sitting on the ground. He smirked, erasing a line he'd drawn and making the figure's stomach much bigger than he'd originally drawn it. There, that was Dudley.

And what was happening to this figure? Harry thought about this for a moment, then began to draw again. Another figure drawn next to Dudley, much taller than he was, with a victorious look on his face. Harry smirked and drew a bloody nose for Dudley, and a mouth wide open in a scream.

Harry closed his eyes, setting his pencil down. Yeah, that would be nice. Someone who picked on Dudley and not on him...

He smiled to himself and added himself into the picture, in the background, looking slightly bewildered, but happy. Then he modified the stance of his unknown hero, making him give his picture self a thumbs up. That seemed right.

"Harry?" The voice of the art teacher came from above him and, startled, he glanced up. "May I see that?"

Harry frowned. His drawings weren't exactly the stick figures they used to be, not after being in this class for almost the whole year. He knew she'd be able to figure out who was in his drawing and what exactly was happening.

"Er, I..."

She took the sketchbook from him gently and looked over the picture. "You draw very well," was all she said about it, even smiling a little. "You know, it's amazing the progress you've made this year."

She flipped to the very front of the book and showed him some of his stick figures, then slowly flipped through the individual pictures, showing how they turned into actual drawings, and then gained more and more realism.

"Not many people are able to draw people so lifelike, especially considering what your skills were before. I would like to suggest that you take this class again next year. If you can make this much progress in one year, imagine the progress you'll make in another year!"

Harry took the sketchbook back and frowned at his first drawing. "All right. I can only imagine what Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon will think about that, though, my retaking a class..."

His teacher smiled at him. "I'll take care of contacting them, don't worry." She straightened and returned to the front of the class.

Harry turned the pages of his sketchbook back to the drawing he had just done. It was true, he had made tremendous progress... Not only in his drawing skills, but also...

There were several pages of his sketchbook that he'd had to rip out so that nobody could see them. Things he would never have been able to explain even if he'd wanted to.

Pictures that moved when he finished drawing them, for example. One minute, he'd be sketching the crowd at the pep rally he was attending, the next, the people in his picture were actually waving and yelling silently, occasionally looking up and grinning at _him_.

These little incidents were rare, as they only seemed to happen when he was feeling particularly emotional about something, but it was strange all the same... And he definitely didn't show them to _anybody_.

Looking down at his latest drawing, he could tell there was something of that strangeness about this one too, but he wasn't really sure what it was. It would probably manifest itself later...

The bell rang marking the end of the class period, and Harry quickly stashed his sketchbook and pencils into his bag, heading out the door into the hallway. Usually the bullies didn't go after him again until after school was out, but today they'd be mad that the principal of all people had bailed him out before.

With a sigh of relief, he made it to his next class and slipped in the door, heading for his seat in the back.

He had escaped punishment for now, but if he didn't hurry home after school, he was going to get extra then...

* * *

They caught up with him in the school yard just minutes after the last bell rang.

The usual taunts and jeers were now punctuated with fists and feet, and Harry just closed his eyes and tried to get away from them, an effort that was almost pointless.

"Hey, why don't you pick on somebody your own size?"

The clichéd remark brought silence over the gathered crowd. Not only was somebody being stupid enough to go against Dudley Dursley and his whole gang, but they were standing up for Harry Potter of all people.

The crowd parted to let the crazy person through. He stood there with his arms folded, and a frown on his face. "I've seen you picking on him all year now, and I probably should have done something about it before, but enough is enough. Let him go."

Harry stared at him. He looked familiar somehow, but he couldn't quite place where he could have seen him before. Certainly not in one of his classes, he would have recognized him if that was the case... Maybe he had just seen him before in the hallways, but that seemed unlikely too, as the only people Harry really saw in the halls were his tormentors...

"Let him go?" He ran out of time to think about it as Dudley picked him up by the back of his collar and threw him at the other boy. He landed rather painfully on his side, but quickly tried to pick himself up. "Fine, and then what?"

The other boy helped him to his feet, then stood between him and Dudley. "And then, you leave him alone, Dudley. Quit picking on him."

Dudley only laughed. "Right, and a wimp like you is going to do something about it."

The boy smirked, putting up his fists. "You wanna fight somebody, you can fight me. But leave him alone."

Harry was shocked. Was this kid nuts? Sure, he was taller than Dudley, but not by much, and Dudley definitely outweighed him by almost three times. This kid had to be crazy!

Dudley apparently thought so too. Laughing, he asked, "Who do you think you are, kid?"

"You can call me Kennan." He grinned.

"All right, Kennan." Dudley nodded at his goons, cracking his knuckles in anticipation. "You want a fight, then let's do this!"

* * *

As Harry had expected, the fight didn't last very long. What Harry hadn't expected, however, was that the winner of the fight wasn't Dudley and his gang. This new guy, Kennan, had taken all of them down, and now Dudley was sitting at his feet, clutching a bloody nose, screaming.

Kennan smirked at him, looking victorious. "I'm sure now you'll think twice about picking on your cousin, huh, Dudley?" he turned to Harry and gave him a thumbs up.

Harry simply watched in shock, his jaw hanging wide open.

If he hadn't just been drawing a picture of a scene like this in his art class just a few short class periods before this, he would have been surprised, of course, but now he was a little scared.

Dropping his bag and pulling out his sketchbook, he looked from the scene depicted in his drawing to what he was looking at now. Not only was this scene exactly what he had drawn, but now he realized where he recognized Kennan from; the figure he had drawn beating up on Dudley looked exactly like him.

Hands shaking, Harry dropped the sketchbook back into his bag and took off for home at a dead run. Several questions were running through his head:

Had he just drawn a picture that had predicted the future...? Or had his picture somehow _made_ this happen?

And either way, how was this possible?

* * *

(1 Year Later)

Harry Potter was having a conversation with a snake. Not a real conversation, of course. Everybody knew that snakes couldn't talk. But ever since his cousin Dudley had banged on the glass of its home and stormed away angrily, the snake had been acting rather odd, pointing at the signs around it as if it understood what Harry was saying.

"Was it nice there?" he asked the snake through the glass, talking about the sign it had pointed out that told him it was from Brazil.

The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on: this specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see. So you've never been to Brazil?"

As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump. "DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T _BELIEVE_ WHAT IT'S DOING!"

Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.

"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. "What? What is it?"

Dudley's friend, Piers looked confused as the two of them pressed their noses up to the glass. "It... it was looking up a second ago. Harry was talking to it, and it was pointing with its tail, I swear..." But the boa constrictor had coiled back up and was, to all appearances, fast asleep once more.

Gingerly, Harry picked himself off the floor and dusted himself off. "I wasn't doing anything to it," he complained. "And it wasn't doing anything either."

Vernon Dursley shot a look in Harry's direction, as if he wasn't sure he believed him, then turned to Dudley and his friend. "Very well, come on now. There's plenty more to the zoo than the reptile house, you know."

They all trooped out of the reptile house, Piers giving Harry a very thoughtful look as they left. Harry's attention was back on the boa constrictor, whose head had come back up again and was watching him intently.

Harry gave it a shrug of apology, which it, strangely, returned as well as a snake could. Then he left.

* * *

After Dudley's rather uneventful 11th birthday, life went on as normal. The two boys went back to school, and Harry went back to his art class, where he drew a picture of the boa constrictor, trying hard to make it just a normal picture and not a strange moving one.

He had now been taking this class for almost a whole two years, and now he could draw very well. He could draw almost photograph-like pictures in less than half the class period, and less complicated ones in mere minutes.

And what was more, most of his drawings were turning out to be the strange pictures he couldn't show anybody. He had a whole notebook of moving pictures, plus some that had seemed to predict the future at times. Sometimes he could reuse entire sheets of paper for multiple drawings, simply because the things that he drew came off the page and became real; which was useful for those times when the Dursleys locked him in his cupboard with no food, but still almost unfathomable.

The boy, Kennan, was still his friend, and he very effectively kept the bullies off him during the school day. He couldn't stop what happened to Harry at his own home, but at least school was better than it had ever been, especially since Kennan had signed up for some of the same classes as Harry that year, including art.

Next September was going to be tough, though. They were all going to be starting secondary school next year, and Kennan would be going to a different one than he was. Thankfully, Dudley would be attending a different school than him as well, as he had been accepted to his father's old private school, but that didn't change the fact that Harry would be losing his best and only friend.

All too soon, the school year ended, and summer vacation began.

Harry spent most of his time wandering around outside, partly because there was nothing to do inside, and partly because Dudley and his gang liked playing Harry Hunting whenever Kennan wasn't around, and the Dursleys, of course, never let him invite friends over.

Life at number four Privet Drive began to take on a dull routine for Harry. Wake up, make and eat breakfast, head out the door and wander over to the park before Dudley's friends arrived. Hang around, dreaming of the beginning of the next school year, then go home, do a few chores, make and eat dinner, go to bed.

Finally, one day near the end of July, something happened to break the monotony.

Harry received a letter in the mail. That in and of itself was strange. The only person in the entire world who would possibly want to write a letter to Harry was Kennan, and he wasn't much of a letter writer. Harry had never received a letter before.

But this letter was strange even if Harry had regularly received letters. For one thing, the envelope was made of a heavy parchment paper, it was closed with a wax seal bearing a strange coat of arms, and the address was written in a green ink. For another, whoever wrote it seemed to know that he lived in the cupboard under the stairs.

Harry took the small stack of letters back to the dining room and tossed the regular mail to his Uncle distractedly, pealing off the wax seal on the parchment envelope so he could get at the letter inside. Dudley quickly discovered what his cousin was up to and called it loudly to his father's attention.

The letter was rather rudely removed from Harry's hands by his incredulous Uncle. "That's ridiculous, who would write to..." his voice trailed off as he read the first few lines of the letter. His face turned several different shades of color very quickly, settling eventually on a deathly pale white. "P-Petunia!"

What followed was a rather hectic fight for the letter, followed by Dudley and Harry both being kicked out of the room. The two of them fought silently for the keyhole to listen in on Vernon and Petunia. Dudley won, so Harry listened at the bottom of the door.

"No, we'll ignore it." Vernon was telling Petunia emphatically. "If they don't get an answer... Yes, that's best. We won't do anything..."

"But-" Petunia tried to say something but Vernon interrupted her.

"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"

That was as far as they got to listen in before they heard footsteps and had to scramble far enough away from the door as to look innocent before it opened.

Harry spent the rest of the day wondering. Who could have written to him? And what was more, who could have written to him with something so important that Uncle Vernon wanted to 'stamp it out' and refuse to let him see it?

Things around the house quickly grew stranger, as first Harry was moved into Dudley's second bedroom, then Uncle Vernon came up with more and more ways to keep Harry from getting his letters, and whoever was sending them came up with more and more creative ways of sending them.

When twenty-four of the letters arrived rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their milkman had delivered to them through the window, due to the fact that the Dursleys' front and back door were both completely boarded up, and Harry still wasn't allowed to see any of them, he decided that he'd had enough.

After he completed all of his usual Saturday chores, Harry snuck up to his new room and pulled out his drawing pad and pencils.

He sat thinking for a long moment. Should he try just drawing a picture of one of the letters and hope that it ended up being one of those pictures that just came to life? He shook his head. He didn't know what the letter inside said; if he tried that, he would end up with an envelope with a piece of blank parchment inside.

So what he really needed was a predicting the future sort of picture; one that showed the letter being delivered to Harry, while the Dursleys weren't looking. What would be the easiest way to portray that?

Well, as he had no idea who was writing the letters, it would be impossible to try to draw them handing him a letter personally... And he had no idea what was actually delivering the letters, (what kind of mailman could get letters to fit inside eggs, after all?) so he couldn't draw a picture of that delivering it to him either.

Finally, Harry began to sketch his new bedroom's window, and the area around it. The window he drew was cracked open slightly, and one of the letters was resting on the sill. Harry thought for a moment more, then drew a moon and stars in the window. It wouldn't do for the letter to arrive during the day when the Dursleys could see it.

Harry wasn't sure at all that this was working, but for good measure, he drew a box in the corner to show each of the Dursleys asleep in their beds.

Then, convinced that he wouldn't be able to do anything more, he stuffed the drawing pad back into his bag, where nobody would look at it.

* * *

Harry was awoken that night by a tapping on his window. Immediately, he was awake, sitting up straight to look towards the window, which he had left slightly open.

Right outside his window was, of all things, a small, brown owl. It peered at him almost questioningly, as if making sure that he was indeed awake, then turned and dropped from the sill, flying off into the night.

Quickly, Harry went to the window to watch its flight, then looked down in amazement at the letter that now sat innocently on the window sill, having obviously been dropped off by the owl.

He picked it up and looked it over. It was the same as all the others that had been arriving. Made of parchment, closed with a strange wax seal, with the address written in green ink.

He tore open the seal, eager to finally get at the letter inside. Nothing could have prepared him for the letter's contents.

"Dear Mr. Potter, We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Harry read aloud to himself, trying to convince himself that what he was reading was real, and not some dream. "We await your owl by no later than July 31."

He frowned at that. "Owl?" his eyes widened as he looked to the window that the owl had just vacated. These people used owls for letters?

But how was he to get a message back to them? He didn't have an owl of his own... And even if he could send a letter, would he address it to the Headmaster, or would he send it to the Deputy Headmistress who had sent him this letter?

Suddenly, the startlingly obvious question popped into his mind: Was this real? There was a possibility that this was some weird product of his picture... But how could that sort of magic come up with something like this?

Magic... Yes, that really was what his pictures were, after all. He had just never really put that word to the situation. So if the magic in his pictures was real, this could be real too! He could go to a school where more people would be like him, and he could learn how to master his magic!

But how was he going to contact these people? He supposed he could draw a picture of the owl returning to his window sill, but that didn't really seem fair to that owl, making it turn around...

But he really couldn't see any other way... Before he did anything, though, he'd have to try and figure out what he wanted written in his letter.

The only available paper he had was drawing paper from his notebook, and he didn't want to waste that, as much as possible. So he took a single sheet and, using one of his drawing pencils, began to write out his letter.

"Dear"... he paused in thought, then decided that since the Deputy Headmistress had written him the letter, he ought to send his letter to her.

"Dear Professor McGonagall,

Thank you for telling me that I've been accepted, but I really don't know any thing about the school, or about magic. My aunt and uncle don't like magic, so I can't ask them for anything. I'd like to go, but I need more information.

Also, I need a better mailing system. The owls just don't work. Thanks.

Sincerely, Harry Potter"

That should work, assuming she didn't think he was being rude... Which, since he had never written a letter before and was simply copying the style of the letter she had sent, was entirely possible...

He wondered vaguely how far away Hogwarts was, and how long it would take them to respond to his letter.

Then he turned to another blank page in his drawing pad and drew a quick picture of the owl sitting on his desk, waiting for him, the window behind him wide open, and the sky still black with night.

Once that was done, he threw the window open, then sat down on his bed to wait. There he waited a long time, until he started to drift asleep again. Suddenly, he was startled awake by the arrival of the owl through his window, and he jumped clumsily to his feet.

The owl landed on his desk, blinking up at him slowly, as if wondering what it was doing back here.

Hurriedly, Harry snatched up his letter and folded it up a few times. He had no envelope to put it in, but he hoped that wouldn't matter. "Can you take this to Professor McGonagall?" he asked the owl, holding the letter out to it.

It ruffled its feathers indignantly, then clamped the letter in its beak and took off through the window again. Harry stared after it in wonder for a long time before he finally went back to sleep.

* * *

Pulled from my original author note:

A quick note about the school system. It may not be hugely obvious with how I wrote the story, but I didn't really give Harry a normal schedule. Normally in a school situation, I would write the schedule based off of my own school. However, the school system in Europe is different than it is here in America, and I wanted to try that...

For those who don't know what happens in England as far as school... well, I don't know either, but it's something like, students age four to ten go to primary school, and once they turn 11, they enter secondary school. Hence why Hogwarts accepts students age 11, it's supposed to be a secondary school. And hence why Dudley says that at 9 years old, he needs to be taking classes that will impress people; so he can get into a good secondary school.

The students at Hogwarts, if you hadn't noticed, have weekly schedules instead of a daily schedule like we have here. Potions classes are every Tuesday and Thursday, rather than every day, and so forth. Again, I don't really know how the school system in England works, but I assumed that the primary school would probably go with the same weekly schedule that the secondary school does... Hence why Harry doesn't always have art right after lunch, in case you were wondering.

* * *

So, yeah. That was my attempt. This was originally two chapters, and I stuffed it into one for my purposes here...

Augh, looking through this, I am appalled by the shortness of the scenes... Augh...

In the end, I didn't _really_ succeed in taking Yu-Gi-Oh out of it completely; you probably wouldn't have been able to tell if I didn't say so here, but I based Kennan's appearance off of Kaiba. Ah, I fail...


	5. Concussion

His head throbbed as he came to, a painful drumbeat rapping against his skull. Wind gusted past his face, and he registered that something huge had clamped tightly around his right leg, jerking it back and forth as though trying to shake it off the rest of him.

Alarmed, he forced his eyes open against the pain. Colors blurred in his vision disorientingly, and he quickly realized that it wasn't just his dizzying headache—the whole world really was swirling around him as whatever had hold of his leg flung him from side to side.

He let out a panicked cry, flailing around as he fought to free himself from what appeared to be a giant hand. Kicking against it with his other foot did nothing, and he couldn't curl his body enough to reach it with his fists. "Let go of me! Let go, you-"

His words cut off as the hand stopped shaking him and he caught sight of the giant head that went with the hand. Glowing eyes bore deep into his own as the monster's jaws opened wide, the hand bringing him closer and closer.

_It's going to eat me_. The thought came with a numb shock that spread through his whole body. He was helpless. He could do nothing but squeeze his eyes shut, bracing himself against the inevitable.

"KYAAAA!" A battle cry ripped through the air, and the hand dropped him, an inhuman roar following immediately afterward.

His eyes whipped open again as he fell, just in time for him to see the ground rushing at him. He tried to tuck himself into a roll, but couldn't manage it before he hit hard and a sharp pain shot through his shoulder.

Trying to ignore what was probably a broken bone or two, he turned himself back toward the monster, trying to figure out what had just happened. As he watched, wide-eyed, it dissolved, starting with a huge gash that had been cut into its face, and spreading to consume it completely.

Standing beside him, facing away toward the place where the monster had stood, was young, black-haired girl wearing strange, black, draping clothing. She sheathed a katana at her waist before looking at him over her shoulder.

"Are you alright?" she asked, her face impassive but her voice betraying some concern.

He wasn't sure how to answer that. He ached all over, especially his still-pounding head and his newly injured shoulder, and he'd almost gotten eaten by the scariest thing he'd ever seen. If this stranger hadn't been here...

With as much humility as he could muster, he bowed his head to her. "T-thank you. You just saved my life."

The girl raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't be the first time," she said dismissively. "Now, mind explaining how that hollow managed to beat you up so badly? You should have been able to handle that one."

Confusion set in, and he frowned. "I should have?" It had seemed to him like nothing he did had any effect on the monster. Was she telling him that he could have somehow made it dissolve like she'd done?

Her concern finally showed in her expression, and she turned to face him fully, walking to his side briskly and leaning over to begin checking his injuries. "You look very dazed," she informed him tightly.

"I _feel_ dazed," he confirmed, still frowning at her as she started doing something to his shoulder. With some interest, he noted that for some reason, he wore exactly the same kind of black clothing as she did, and he vaguely wondered why. Still, he had more important questions to ask: "What was that thing, anyway?"

She gave a light shrug, her hands beginning to glow green as she concentrated. Immediately, the pain in his shoulder lessened, and he stared in surprise. "Just a low-level hollow," she answered distractedly. "Didn't even have a codename or a rap sheet."

His frown deepened. She made it sound more like a criminal than a monster. Was she that used to giant masked beasts attacking random people? "A... hollow?" he asked, testing out the word.

The girl glanced up, looking him in the eye with a strange look. "Yes, a hollow. What did you think it was? A puppy?" More than a little sarcasm tinged her voice now.

With annoyance, he scowled at her, her condescending words irritating him more than the fact that she obviously expected him to already know what the thing was when he'd never encountered one before.

She finished doing her healing thing on his shoulder, and gently prodded the back of his head. Her movement caused pain to lance through his skull again, and he involuntarily jerked away, a grunt escaping him as stars danced in front of his eyes. She let out a sigh. "You always manage to get hit in the head," she scolded him. "One of these days, you're going to wind up with serious brain damage. Just don't go blaming me the day you can't remember your own name anymore, got it?"

He started to roll his eyes at that, but suddenly he froze, his expression going blank. His name?

His name was...

It was...

A deep sense of dread washed over him, as things finally started to make some sense. This girl wasn't trying to be rude to him—somehow, he _was_ supposed to know what these 'hollows' were already. Just like he probably should know who _she_ was.

"This is going to sound really stupid," he groaned in a low voice, "but... what _is_ my name?"

She just snorted at him. "Ha, ha. Very funny, Ichigo."

For a long moment, he merely watched her, his eyes narrowing as he pondered the name she'd used. If she thought he was joking, then she probably hadn't just given him a fake name, but "strawberry" sounded like a seriously weird name for a guy to have.

Slowly, he shook his head, deciding that it didn't really matter. "Ichigo. Alright, then. And you are...?"

The girl froze, and finally turned to look him in the eye, her face wrinkled in confusion as she searched his expression. He scowled at her, silently daring her to claim he was making this up.

"You're... serious, aren't you?" Her voice had lowered, and her eyebrows came together in concern. "My name is Rukia. You really don't remember me?"

He rolled his eyes. "Why would I joke about something like this?"

Immediately, she became extremely business-like. "Right. What's the last thing you remember, Ichigo?"

After a quick pause to think about that, he shrugged. "I remember waking up with that monster shaking me around. Aside from that..." His scowl deepened as he fought to get more than that, but even the few mental images he could conjure seemed fuzzy. "Nothing."

She frowned at him. "We... may have a problem."

Understatement of the century.


End file.
